Thursday, June 12, 2014

It is very obvious, at least to me, that Ms Child loves
writing these books.If possible, each
one gets better than the one before it.

She writes in a relaxed and fun manner, her books are easily
accessible by either the young, or the adult. They are full of fun facts
presented in a lighthearted way, and at the end, she has a list of 24 Fun Facts
about cheetahs. Wish she'd written these books when I was still in school—what
fun to read and repeat all those facts.

For instance, did you know cheetahs are terrible climbers,
that they can change direction mid-air while chasing their prey, that they
can't roar, but they can, and do, purr? Did you know that the Ancient Egyptians
tamed them and kept them as pets and or used them while hunting?

If you have a young one you buy books for, I heartily
recommend this series of books. If your youngster isn't yet reading, and you
read aloud, you will enjoy this book each time you're asked to read it. You
will enjoy it each and every time you read it.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

The Farthest Home is in an Empire of
Fire: A Tejano Elegy –John Phillip Santos

Nonfiction / Memoir

280 pages

5 Stars

When I read his first book, Places Left Unfinished at the
Time of Creation, I never wanted the book to end. I parsed out the last few
pages one or two pages at a time, and then one or two paragraphs until, alas, I
reached the fateful words: The End.

This book was only slightly different, I did not parse out
the last pages, because I know there is another book by him waiting to be read.

Where Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation was a
pretty straight forward memoir of his patrilineal line, The Farthest Home is in
an Empire of Fire: A Tejano Elegy is anything but a straightforward memoir of
his matrilineal side of the family.

He took chances with this book, and they not only worked,
they worked well. He used poetic language—in fact, the whole book may well be one
very long prose poem—to weave a tapestry of brilliant colors and subdued
shadows of a surreal magical realism as he told the story of his search for his matrilineal roots.

Engrossed right from the beginning, I had a hard time
putting this book down. Normally, when people use "foreign" words in
a story, it's a turn-off for me. I get the feeling they are trying to show me
how intelligent they think they are. This book starts off in Spanish. I do not
speak Spanish. But I read, and I recognized the words, and he explains them
when they might not be so obvious to a gringa such as I. (We have so many Latin
Americans living in my area, that most signs are in Spanish and English—it is
amazing what one can learn by reading and observing!)

This is the story of Santos searching for his deep roots,
all the way back to Spain, and how he finds them. I loved the people he met
along the way, and the story of meeting a cousin and trading his Tony Lama
boots for his cousin's ragged farm work boots. They wore the same size.

His mother's family arrived in southern Texas in the 1620s,
Santos goes back to Spain and finds the town they were from. He rethinks the
way we think about our identity. Wo are we, really? How many generations or
years must we be Spanish or Mexican or American or Scottish to call ourselves
by one name or another?

This book is history, from an up close and personal
perspective. It is memoir. It is told in past, present, and future. It is
totally engaging. A read no one should miss.